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How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#271

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

LoganDark wrote: post #212
redczar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add a few more freedoms. 1. Can’t walk about drinking a beer. 2. Can’t carry too much cash or it’s at risk of being confiscated. 3. Criminalization of walking. https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-crimin... 4. Pretty much have to own a car in most places. 5. Thousands of polling stations closed since the Voting Rights Act was gutted. 6. Federal politics held hostage by low population states. It’…

> 4. Pretty much have to own a car in most places. Hey, electric scooters are not the worst ever (although I got hit by a truck while riding one and decided to get a car just because I don't like getting hit by trucks)

Need faster e-scooter!

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#272

Post by aaron695 »

miros_love wrote: post #102

Not sure about CBP specifically, but many countries already use specialized tools to break into phones and silently install backdoors — Cellebrite comes to mind. As my favorite blogger puts it: "If the data is important, it's not stored in only one place. If there's no backup, it wasn't important." With that in mind, wiping the device and filling the gallery with high-resolution images of genitals covered in excremen…

[dead]

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#273

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

devilbunny wrote: post #233
LoganDark wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Pretty much have to own a car in most places. Hey, electric scooters are not the worst ever (although I got hit by a truck while riding one and decided to get a car just because I don't like getting hit by trucks)

They aren't, but I live in a hot, humid climate where it often rains. So a scooter is not the best there. And then my workplace is right on a highway - I can take lower-speed roads to get there, but even the slowest path involves 35 MPH roads (~55 km/h), and it's longer.

Goretex...

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#274

Post by kashunstva »

arnonejoe wrote: post #155

I think this article is factually incorrect on one point. You cannot be detained for not providing the contents to your phone. That is absurd.

> You cannot be detained for not providing the contents to your phone. That is absurd.

Yet there are comments form U.S. citizens elsewhere here that testify to having been detained at the U.S. border. They seem to have wide latitude in deciding who needs more scrutiny.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#275

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

tverbeure wrote: post #205
jancsika wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #2 through #7: they are all true and important. I'm aware of different efforts over the years to address some of them, but they are all definitely active problems. Regarding #1-- is it possible you have a drinking problem?

> Regarding #1-- is it possible you have a drinking problem? You don't have to be an alcoholic (I don't even drink) to agree that with OP that #1 is an arbitrary reduction of freedom. Especially when walking around with a gun is totally fine. Which one has a larger potential of killing somebody? (And before you make some other ridiculous insinuation, we're talking here about walking, not driving.)

Walking around with a gun while being 'under the influence' is bad!1!!

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#277

Post by sipofwater »

tootie wrote: post #161
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #57

Also known as "how to visit detention centers". The amount of bad advice here is staggering. You are not James Bond or some kind of ninja Seals secret agent. You are a nobody attempting to enter a country, and you will be pissing off the border police. Have some common sense.

The US is deporting grad students with visas and green cards. They are absolutely going after nobodies right now.

"With more than 300 student visas revoked, international scholars worry as the government expands reasons for deportation": https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/us-immigration-student-vis... (www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/us-immigration-student-visas-revoked/index.html)

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#278

Post by qwerpy »

lawlessone wrote: post #75
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #57

Also known as "how to visit detention centers". The amount of bad advice here is staggering. You are not James Bond or some kind of ninja Seals secret agent. You are a nobody attempting to enter a country, and you will be pissing off the border police. Have some common sense.

>Have some common sense. The common sense would be don't go to countries where you risk being immediately sent home or to a slave colony in El Salvador for writing something mean about its president.

Yeah, be careful about going to Thailand: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx48egpgq1o

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#279

Post by hackable_sand »

fragmede wrote: post #203
jancsika wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #2 through #7: they are all true and important. I'm aware of different efforts over the years to address some of them, but they are all definitely active problems. Regarding #1-- is it possible you have a drinking problem?

you buy a coca cola and walk 50 feet from one venue to the next and nobody bats an eye, but you do that with a twisted tea and suddenly people are asking you if you suffer from alcoholism

Or cigarettes/weed, for instance.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#280

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

ryandrake wrote: post #245
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #62

Wouldn’t the best method just be to buy a second phone prior to your crossing, use it for innocuous things, and leave your real one at home?

Or, just don't bring a phone.

Wouldn’t that look suspicious these days?
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